Last week, Crikey asked me to write something for the pay-for-view newsletter on the huge, earth-shattering controversy of Britney Spears’ lip-syncing. It is now reproduced below with a new update….
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The Maladies
With you by my side, baby,
the deal just can’t go down
The Maladies
www.myspace.com/themaladiesband
There’s something a bit old testament about this new album. There is certainly some testifying going on. This one was sent to me by the band’s management and it happened to arrive just as I had a moment to spare, so I pulled it out of the jiffy bag and bunged it the CD player and lo, there was music. Disturbing, satisfying music. I sat and listened to the thing the whole way through, and I’ve heard it a few times since. Although I tend to wait before committing thoughts to screen on new albums, I figured I could risk a few thoughts on this.
Loved it. Read More
Before there was Peter Frampton, before guitarists like the Edge and Andy Summers cluttered up the stage with more effects pedals than you found in the average music shop, there was Pete Drake. (More info here.)
CD Review
Madder Lake
Stillpoint
(Re-released by Aztec Music)
What a perfect little album this is. The vinyl original came out in 1975 and I remember very well buying it and playing it to death, though I’m less clear on why I’d even heard of it or why I thought I wanted it. Peer pressure or social osmosis, I guess. Yay for following the herd then. I actually still have the vinyl copy but it’s in storage (long story) so I haven’t heard it in an age. So when I saw this re-released CD version in a shop the other day I grabbed it. Glad I did.
As I say, I didn’t know much about the band, though I did know they were from Melbourne, and I do remember my cousin telling me when she was staying with us in Canberra one Christmas holidays that she knew someone who knew the lead guitarist, which I thought was pretty cool, and I can even remember writing a letter to the guitarist and giving it to my cousin to give to her friend to give to him, but I’m pretty sure it never made it past my cousin. God knows what it said.
Listening to Stillpoint again after all these years was less a trip down memory lane, or a nostalgia mainline, than a reacquaintance with an old friend who had grown and prospered in the years of our separation. By which I mean, I am hearing it with fresh ears and I think that it stands on its own two feet without any need to justify itself in terms of past glories. To put it another way, if someone released it today, it would still sound fresh and original. Read More
CD Review
Lisa Mitchell
Wonder
(Warner Music)
It’s hard to talk about Lisa Mitchell without mentioning Australian Idol, so I guess I should begin by explaining why I’ve been a fan of the show. We lived overseas for the first two seasons of Idol so kind of missed the initial buzz it generated. But one thing that was really noticeable when we came back, and maybe only to people like us who’d been away, is that the show went some way towards changing the social culture at schools. I don’t want to oversell this idea, but it really did make it easier for a kid who wasn’t so much into sport and was instead into singing or even dancing, find a place. Idol conferred some sort of legitimacy on the idea that you could be a performer. No small thing.
That’s not the only thing I like about it, but it is a pretty good legacy for a show like that. Anyway, having watched virtually every episode from Series Three onwards, I would also say the show has probably ruined as many careers as it has made. Not just careers, but artistic lives. I certainly don’t just blame the show for that — nobody forces people to audition — but it is as well to acknowledge the reality. And Lisa Mitchell, from my vantage point, was one the kids it chewed up and spat out. Read More
CD Review
Martha Wainwright
Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, A Paris
(Thru: Shock Records)
It is a fact universally acknowledged that a francophone pop/folk chanteuse in search of critical acclaim will at some stage record an album of Edith Piaf songs. Nothing wrong with that — who wouldn’t want to sink their chops into the Piaf songbook? — but said chanteuse has to be careful. The two big questions are: has the pretender got the vocal chops to hold her own against the sui generis Sparrow, and can she bring something new to what is, at this stage, a pretty well-thumbed set of sheet music?
Enter Martha Wainwright and her album of Piaf songs due out November 13. As a big fan of Wainwright’s usual work, especially her first album, I was curious as to what she would do with this and I have to admit it is a bit of a triumph. Read More
My extended break while I work on another project is still in force and I want to thank everyone for their patience, though maybe disappearing for a while isn’t such a bad career move: I also turned off Twitter last week, went completely silent, and noticed this morning that my number of followers increased.
Anyway, despite the other work, I’ve been listening to a bunch of stuff, most of which I’ve really enjoyed, and so this week I’ll be putting up reviews of those and maybe some other pieces as well. Then there might be some silence again, but we’ll see. So thanks for hanging in there.
The first album I’m going to say something about is the new one by Martha Wainwright. That’ll be up later this morning. Also, I note from @hawleyrose that The Band are set to work together again. Which a good excuse for this. (See you shortly.)
I interrupt my brief hiatus (I have a deadline for another project) to pay a small tribute to Troy Kennedy Martin, one of the great geniuses and innovators of television drama. He died the other day, aged 77.
The show of his getting most of the attention — rightly so — is Edge of Darkness, and The Guardian offers a pretty of good assessment of it in their piece on Martin.
To me, Edge of Darkness is probably the first of the sort of quality, grown-up, extended drama series that we now tend to associate with the programming that comes out of HBO in the United States (peace be upon them). If you haven’t seen it, it is so worth getting a hold of the DVDs.
And of course, one of the things that made it a success and that gave it a distinctive edge was the soundtrack it used, written in part, and played by Eric Clapton. They also deployed — brilliantly — Willie Nelson’s song, ‘The Time of the Preacher’. Is there a better television drama soundtrack anywhere?
Vale Troy Kennedy Martin.
Here’s a few clips: first, Clapton doing concert version of the soundtrack. Then, a scene from the show where “‘he Time of the Preacher’ is used.
(And now I go back to my hiding place for a bit longer. Unless someone else “seminal” dies.)
I downloaded a couple of tracks from Patti Smith’s covers album and it put more in the mood for a bit of the same: that is, cover versions. So I thought I’d bung a few up. Add your favourites.
Also, I’m trying to finish another project at the moment so will be a bit pre-occupied with that over the next few weeks. I’ll keep posting, but not quite as frequently as usual. I’ll still be lurking around comments, so feel free to drop in with suggestions, comments or any other music-related observations.
So here’s Patti Smith doing ‘Soul Kitchen’ by the Doors.
Hard to believe Steve Hillage was once under consideration to join the Rolling Stones. Here he is doing Donovan’s ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’.
For something completely different, here’s Carly Simon doing Kris Kristofferson’s ‘I’ve Got to Have You’. Really nice slow guitar solo in this. (Wasn’t available on YouTube).
And one more. Again, no YouTube. A surprisingly straight version of ‘Kiss’, the Prince song, by English folky, Richard Thompson
Some time yesterday my life was taken over by the pursuit of music by Gary Lucas. These things happen in a basement.
Lucas is one of those musicians who had kind of passed me by, someone whose name I had heard mentioned in hushed tones of reverence over the years but who, for some reason, I had never really followed up on. I knew that he had worked with Jeff Buckley on Grace, for instance, but I had no idea of the list of people he has worked with over the years, nor, really, any idea of why he is so revered.
So this is me doing the stalker thing, trying to fill a gap in my knowledge.
What started it all was this god-awful piece about Tom Verlaine over on the eMusic site. Specifically, the author (Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith’s guitarist) mentioned an album by Lucas that included a version of the old Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett) song, ‘Astronomy Domine’. Okay, that piqued my interest.
So I checked out Wikipedia and discovered that: Read More
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